


Your best

by ShadowSelene (Shadowdianne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 20:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16667344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/ShadowSelene
Summary: “You call this your best?” Asked by alternate8reality“You want to let her see you as you are now and merely see Emma.” The voice kept on, each word slicing Emma’s chest. She had already tried to pluck out her heart, see if the red had already been turned into black. She had hated that second of doubt, that stupid idea of not being able to have both, inherited from her mother’s hope speeches in where everything was black or white. Perhaps that had been the reason why she hadn’t been able to finally do it. “You want her to want you.”





	Your best

**Author's Note:**

> Very quickly done, I will probably come back to this one and do some serious editing but I felt quite happy with how it turned out. Will see you at the comment section!

“You call this your best?”

The words where a mere whisper hidden on the sound the waves made as they broke against the docks and Emma -no, not Emma, something else, someone else- wanted to scream at them and at the mocking undertone they had, almost a giggle away from being the perfect personification of a certain imp that kept pestering her. She didn’t answer, despite the anger rising inside of her, knowing already there was very little she would be able to say to defend herself. The words, after all, were right; her best was nothing but a pathetic comment directed at Regina with the only hope for the brunette to see behind the curtain she had pulled around the ones who had dared to follow her to Camelot.

A curtain she knew was impossible to break as magic was powerful both there and in Camelot. And yet, she wished to be able to say more, to make Regina remember. Not the dagger or the promise she had made the other woman take but the woman’s fierce nature, the one that had shined through on Camelot as Emma herself slowly lost her mind.

Sighing and muttering a few dark words that made the waves momentarily stop, she turned and left, feeling the lingering touch of Regina’s intoxicating magic following her. A reminder that she now was able to feel what she suspected the brunette had been able to ever since Neverland. Not like she was brave enough to ask that question, not now, when everything they all saw was the dark leather and white hair.

“You have brought that to yourself.”

The voice, a different one than the imp’s, closer to her own and yet not exactly hers, echoed cruel on the back of her mind and despite the anger she felt at it, she knew it to be true. And yet, despite that, she found herself unwilling to be anything else but the Emma she was now: not the savior, not the embodiment of a misplaced idea of what being completely “good” was.

Still, Regina, Henry, the ones she missed deeply, still eyed her with that same sense of loss and Emma hated that, hated she could not be Emma for them, a braver Emma, a more colorful Emma, a better Emma.

“If you want for Her Majesty to look at you you need to do something more… obvious, dear.”

This time the words felt like coming with the wind and the echo of her boots against the asphalt and Emma growled at them before raising her hands, dark grey magic enveloping her in a second. It didn’t matter, however, as the words would keep on coming, keep on making her toss and turn, unable to sleep or rest.

She wished, she thought as she appeared in front of her newly created house, the one she supposed a more “adult” version of herself should want, that she had been able to explain herself better to Regina back at Camelot, to be strong enough to ask for a dance in that ball, to come closer to her and take her aside when Robin had almost died, anger at feeling used clouding her feelings more than she had been able to express.

“Let her taste some of your magic.” The giggling imp didn’t need to appear in front of her for Emma to picture him, looking down at her, lazily perched atop the house’s fence. “Make her remember how dark magic feels like.”

Clenching her teeth, she walked past the image and opened the door with one single movement, no longer surprised of her magic prowess even if the hexes and spells she used effortlessly weren’t ones she had learnt with Regina on those short-lived classes. Ones she wished, longed for again.

“You could do so many things…” There, the voice was closer now, the feeling of lips grazing her earlobe almost real enough for her to turn and stare at what she knew already would be an empty space. “If you just tried to show her.”

“I’m not going to do that.” She replied back, hotly and she could feel her own vocal chords folding into a maddening laugh. One that wasn’t her own, one that she hadn’t intended to make.

“But you want it.” The voice of the Imp replied, smugly. And Emma wanted to scream at it.

Freedom, as she had quickly learnt after letting the dark magic that now cursed her veins, was a very tricky thing to even Dark Ones.

“You want to let her see you as you are now and merely see Emma.” The voice kept on, each word slicing Emma’s chest. She had already tried to pluck out her heart, see if the red had already been turned into black. She had hated that second of doubt, that stupid idea of not being able to have both, inherited from her mother’s hope speeches in where everything was black or white. Perhaps that had been the reason why she hadn’t been able to finally do it. “You want her to _want_ you.”

Maybe.

“Leave me alone.” She said, instead than the _“yes”_ she wanted to reply. Because, at the end, she wanted that, wanted to present herself in front of Regina and tell her what she had been unable to for too long. Maybe, even, ask for a kiss, a touch, a caress.

“You don’t want only that.” The voice added, a quieter yet still high-pitch laugh echoing through the empty living-room. “You want more, much much more.”

“Stop.”

“So, Dark One, is this your best?”


End file.
